


Hypotenuse

by watanuki_sama



Series: Pythagorean [1]
Category: Common Law
Genre: Demiromantic!Travis, Other, Panic Attack, Polyamory, Pre-Canon, Sex-No Explicit Descriptions, Some Swearing, Travis has issues, m/m/f, pre-divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6258034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not supposed to be like this. It’s just sex; he’s not supposed to let feelings get involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypotenuse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vanete_druse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanete_druse/gifts).



> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 03.15.16.
> 
> Alternately titled: THE SLOW AND SUBTLE WOOING OF TRAVIS MARKS, USING FOOD AND SEX. BUT MOSTLY SEX.
> 
> Written as a gift for my lovely **allthatisbizarre,** who had a long and wonderful post about pre-canon OT3 and how that might work. I tried to incorporate absolutely as many things from that post as I could. I hope you like it, sweetie!

_“The higher you build walls around your heart, the harder you fall when someone tears them down.”_   
_—Unknown_

\---

He thinks they’re joking, at first.

“Seriously?” He looks from Wes to Alex and back again. “You really… _seriously?”_

Wes stares at his clasped hands, face so red it almost looks like he’s having a heart attack. Alex, one hand on her husband’s arm, lifts her chin and meets his eye, two bright pink spots of color on her cheeks. “Yes, Travis,” she says, only the slightest hint of embarrassment in her voice. “We’re serious.”

He’d come over for dinner, as he’d been doing more and more because the food at the Mitchell homestead is _amazing_. It had just been a normal evening, good food and bright laughter and engaging conversation. They’d retired to the living room, and Travis knew from experience that the evening could go well into the night if they let it.

Then Wes and Alex had given each other very significant looks, and they’d both sat up, and Wes had said, “Travis, we need to ask you something.”

Going just by the expressions on their faces and the suddenly tense air in the room, Travis had sat up as well, stomach curdling uncomfortably. “Are you breaking up with me?” he’d asked, trying to ease both the tension in the room and the knot in his belly. It hadn’t worked.

Wes and Alex had looked at each other again. Then they’d laid it all out.

They weren’t breaking up with him. Quite the opposite, in fact.

He’s been sitting here gawping at them too long, because all of a sudden Wes’s shoulders hunch up to his ears and he turns to Alex, snapping angrily, “I _told_ you this was a stupid idea.”

Alex pats his arm, quelling him, and he reluctantly settles, tense and about three seconds from bolting from the room entirely. He doesn’t look at Travis; Travis is unexpectedly hurt by that.

“Okay.” He sits back, rubs his brow. “Go through this one more time for me.”

Since Wes isn’t leaping on that, Alex takes a breath and bites the bullet. “We’ve realized that there is something… _missing_ in our relationship, and we’re afraid if we keep going as we are, we’ll just…fall apart. And we don’t want that.”

“So you thought of me.” Travis frowns, drumming his fingers on his knee. “Because…I’m promiscuous?” He’s a little hurt by that, too. Sure, it’s kind of _true_ , but still.

Wes’s head snaps up, and in his flushed face his sharp blue eyes stand out even more. “We didn’t say that. No one said that!”

“Okay, okay.” Travis holds out his hands, placating. “My bad.”

Again, that hand on Wes’s arm, settling him. “We thought of you,” Alex says sternly, “because you’re our friend, and we like you. We _care_ about you. So we’d like your help.”

Wes shifts, coughs into his fist (and as awkward and strange as this conversation is, it’s kind of hilarious seeing Wes so flustered). “You don’t have to, of course,” he says, hands twisting in his lap. “This isn’t—you don’t have to.”

Alex watches him, grip tightening on Wes’s arm, and takes a breath. “Will you do it?”

Travis looks between them.

\---

He says yes, of course. What kind of idiot would pass _this_ up?

\---

Despite his reputation as a shameless horndog, Travis has only been involved in two threesomes in his life. Still, he supposes that’s about two more threesomes than Wes and Alex have ever had—unless they’re a _lot_ more experimental than they let on—which kind of makes him the reigning expert.

Sure, it’s definitely shocking they’re _asking_ for his expertise in this particular matter. If someone had told him yesterday that his partner and his partner’s wife would invite him into a semi-regular threesome to save their marriage, Travis would have laughed himself sick.

And yet, here he is.

He’s definitely going to do it, and not just because of the prospect of steady sex in the near future. There’s very little Travis wouldn’t do for Wes and Alex. So if they want to expand their horizons to spice up their marriage, Travis will do his part. Besides, Travis is always happy to share his knowledge.

What’s a little sex between friends?

\---

They go upstairs right away. (“It’s like a test drive!” Travis says brightly, which makes Wes sputter and Alex flush prettily and go, “More like a compatibility test, really”—which makes Wes sputter some more, and that’s never _not_ funny.)

There is a moment, standing in the middle of the bedroom, where Travis thinks they’re going to change their minds, say it’s all a joke and kick him out. It’s not really their style, but this is so outside the bounds of normal _anyway_ … Merely _being_ in this place, about to do what they’re going to do, lends a surreality to the scene, something that says there’s no _way_ this is _really_ happening.

Then Alex lets out a breath, says, “Okay,” and takes off her shirt.

Travis is momentarily struck dumb. There’s an endless expanse of smooth, creamy skin exposed, the black lace bra a sharp contrast. (The good bra, his brain supplies, the kind that says _I’m getting laid tonight_ , as though she was certain he wouldn’t say no…)

He reaches out before he can think about it, stops himself before he touches. “Can I?” he asks, voice catching in his throat.

Alex licks her lips, looks up at him through her lashes. “Of course,” she murmurs.

Travis closes the distance, cupping her shoulder, caressing down the length of her arm. It’s a gentle touch, a nothing touch, but she shivers under his hand, pupils dilating, and licks her lips again.

Okay. Maybe this is not a joke.

“I should probably take off my shirt, too,” he offers.

Alex nods. “Yeah. That’s, um, that’s a good idea.”

Slowly, he pulls his shirt over his head. As the cloth slithers to the floor, he hears a strangled, choked noise from his left. Travis glances over.

Wes, clutching the doorframe with whitened knuckles, is watching them both, eyes dark and hungry. It’s not just Alex he’s looking at, either—his gaze roams Travis’s chest, an almost tangible caress. Travis has never, ever seen his partner look like that.

_Definitely_ not a joke.

Behind him, Alex makes a little noise in her throat. “I think Wes is overdressed for the party.”

“I think you’re absolutely right.” Feeling Wes’s stare with every step, Travis crosses the room to stop in front of his partner. Up close, he can see through the lust, see the apprehension and doubt in Wes’s eyes, how every line of his body is tense, like he has to hold himself in place.

Travis takes pity on him. “We don’t have to,” he offers, one last chance to back out, to laugh this all off and go back to work in the morning like nothing happened.

Wes just rolls his eyes, refreshingly familiar in the surreality of the moment. “Shut up, Travis,” he snaps, and hauls him close to crash their mouths together.

\---

It’s not perfect. First times never are. Add in an extra body, and things get even more complicated. There’s a lot of fumbling and hushed, breathless giggles. Arms and legs go every which way as they position themselves, and Travis gets an elbow in his spine that neither of them own up to.

But then they find their rhythm, the pattern falling into place, and—it’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty damn fantastic.

There’s a moment in the middle, there, when Travis pulls back and watches them. Just watches, the sheen of sweat on Wes’s skin and the long line of Alex’s neck as she throws her head back, a moment that steals his breath away, makes his heart skip a beat, and he just thinks, _Wow_.

_Wow_.

\---

He’s thought about it before, of course. He doesn’t know how anyone, upon meeting these two beautiful people, _hasn’t_ thought about it. He’s thought of grabbing Wes’s collar when they’re arguing, pushing him up against the wall and seeing how long it takes him to fall apart. He’s imagined giving Alex a slow, languid kiss, easing her down and showing her all the ways he knows to pleasure a woman.

He’s thought about it, but he’s never done anything. Never gone any further. Because Wes is his partner and his best friend, and Travis doesn’t want to lose that. Not when all of his other relationships end in shambles. And Alex, god, he adores Alex, loves talking to her and ganging up with her against Wes, she’s not his _best_ friend but she’s definitely in the top five. Even if it weren’t the biggest betrayal to both of them, they’re _married_ —to _each other_ , even—And Travis just isn’t that kind of guy.

He’s had fantasies, sure, but he’s always held them close to his chest, not willing to risk anything.

He never imagined this. Nothing like this.

\---

He snaps awake, instantly alert in a way that’s become all too familiar in his life. The only time he ever wakes slowly is when he’s at home, alone, where he knows he’s safe. Not…not that he’s _not_ safe, in Wes and Alex’s house, but…it’s complicated.

He ended up on the outside of their tangled sprawl, by unconscious design. Carefully, he eases Alex’s arm off his chest, drapes it over Wes’s shoulder. Alex lets out a breathy sigh and stirs; Travis freezes and holds his breath. He doesn’t move again until she settles, her nose tucked up against Wes’s shoulder.

He makes it off the bed without any other near misses, tucking the covers around Alex’s side. He takes a second to stop, to study them in the ambient light. _Wow_ , he thinks again, a quiet awe that he’s here, with them, that he can see them like this, soft and gilded in silver.

Except this is about them, not him, so he only indulges another moment before turning away. On silent feet much too used to doing this, he gathers his scattered clothes and slips out into the hallway. He dresses quickly, keeping an ear on the bedroom, but there’s no movement.

It’s almost four in the morning, but Travis trots down the stairs with pep in his step. By the time he’s gathered his jacket and boots and stepped outside, he’s practically giddy.

He takes a deep breath and can’t quite keep the stupid grin off his face.

\---

If he thought Wes would be totally obvious in the morning, Travis has severely underestimated his partner. Sure, Wes can’t look him in the eye for half the morning, and when they get too close the blonde turns skittish, shuffles away. But hell, that could all be explained away as yet another fight the two of them are sore about.

No one else can read Wes well enough to know that the color on his cheeks is embarrassment, not anger, or notice the way Wes keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye, not direct eye contact but certainly not the cold shoulder either.

(At one point, Travis shoots Wes his best ‘come hither’ look, which makes Wes knock over a cup of pens and turn cherry red. He excuses himself to the bathroom and Travis laughs for five minutes.)

It’s not until lunch that Wes says anything at all. Travis has been waiting all morning; this—whatever this is—is Wes and Alex’s show. He’ll take his cue from them.

They’re sitting outside, at a relatively private table on the sidewalk, and Wes keeps picking at the crust of his sub, rather than eating it. After a few false starts, Wes clears his throat, sits up straight, and says, “So.”

He’s been expecting this. Travis swallows, sets down his own sub, and waits.

After a minute, he prompts, “So…?”

“So.” Color stains Wes’s cheeks, but he doesn’t drop his gaze. “You, ah, you didn’t stay.”

Travis has to run that through a couple times, just to make sure he heard it right, because that is _not_ how he figured this would start. When he determined that Wes has said _exactly_ what he thought, he meets Wes’s expectant look with a completely incredulous look of his own. “Why would I have stayed?”

Wes’s face does a funny, complicated thing Travis can’t even begin to describe. “Right,” he mutters, and goes back to picking at his sub. “Why would you?”

Travis waits, but Wes doesn’t say anything else. Conversation apparently over, Travis picks up his sub once more, ignoring the funny feeling that he’s missed something important. That’s that, he figures, and if Wes wants to talk about it, he’ll bring it up.

Wes doesn’t. He simply sits there and picks at his lunch, looking thoughtful and more than a little disgruntled. By the time Travis has finished his sub, Wes has eaten less than half of his, and he doesn’t seem like he’s going to be eating any more.

Travis points at Wes’s lunch. “You gonna finish that?”

Wes rolls his eyes and pushes it over.

\---

Since Wes is being tight-lipped about it—which, honestly, not surprising at _all_ —Travis sends Alex a text after lunch. All it says is _Did I Pass?_

He gets an unexpected little lurch in his stomach when his phone buzzes, and it’s not quite anticipation. More like dread, except not really. He can’t even begin to guess.

Rather than looking too deeply at his own feelings—because _that_ never ends well—he picks up his phone. What he sees makes a slow grin cross his face.

Wes, who has an uncanny ability to sense when Travis is feeling smug, looks up with narrowed eyes “What?”

Travis just turns his phone, showing off Alex’s response. _A++++++!!_

Wes turns scarlet and ducks his head. Completely unable to leave well enough alone, Travis scoots his chair beside Wes’s desk. “You really think so?” he teases, nudging his partner. “All those pluses. That’s like extra _extra_ credit.”

Wes ducks his head and shoves Travis away, muttering, “Get back to work, idiot.” But Travis can see the tiny smile curling up the corner of his mouth.

Extra extra credit indeed.

\---

Friday after work, Travis goes home with Wes, which, to be fair, isn’t particularly unusual. Travis goes to the Mitchell house once or twice a week, because he is always a sucker for a home-cooked meal.

But it’s different tonight, a delicious tension crackling in the air between the three of them. When Wes passes the salt, their fingers brush, a sharp zing that travels up Travis’s arm. Halfway through the meal, Alex looks at him over the rim of her glass, a look Travis knows down to his very bones. This is nothing like any of their other dinners, and the anticipation makes him twitchy, eager to gogo _go_.

By the time dinner is finally over, Travis is _more_ than ready. It takes _forever_ to get the dishes and food put away. He’s half-tempted to just tell Wes to shove it, they’ll do it later, except he knows exactly how well _that_ would go down, and he just barely manages to bite his tongue.

And then everything is _finally done_ , and Wes makes a mocking sweeping motion at the stairs and says, “Shall we?” and Travis just grins and hooks his arm with Alex’s and says, “Lead on.”

\---

It’s a little easier the second time around, flows a little smoother. Still not perfect, but they understand how things work a little better now, have less body parts jammed into uncomfortable places. It’s a dance made of whispered exhalations and sliding skin and breathless sounds of ecstasy.

It should be strange, this sort of thing with these two people he adores, but really, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

_That_ , he realizes after, staring at the ceiling. _That’s_ the strange part.

He waits until their breaths even out, heavy with sleep, then slowly gets up.

\---

On Monday, Travis half expects Wes to say something about Travis leaving Friday night. He waits for it, and while Wes looks a few times like he’s about to bring it up, he never does.

By the end of the day, Travis figures the subject has been dropped.

Good. He doesn’t need to stay the night. For Wes and Alex’s sake, it’s actually _better_ if he’s not there. Let them soak up all the mushy feelings of the afterglow without Travis being in the middle.

\---

Probably the weirdest part of this is that it doesn’t _change_ anything. Wes is such a prude about this sort of thing, Travis figured adding sex to their already odd relationship would just turn everything upside down. And while he’s friends with Alex, they don’t spend a ton of time together without Wes there, and it just seems like something should have changed with that dynamic too.

But nothing’s changed very much at all. Travis and Wes still get in their stupid little fights. They still solve their way through the department and get on everyone’s nerves and make the captain look heavenward like he’s praying for patience. Travis still texts Alex all the time, mostly to make fun of Wes and trade stories about their day.

Things are disgustingly _normal_.

Except a couple of times a week, Travis goes home with Wes and has dinner with him and Alex and then the three of them tumble into bed together.

It’s not that everything is exactly the same. Clearly, it’s not, what with the sex and everything. But it’s more than that. There’s something between them now, something subtle tangle through the three of them, and Travis wishes he had words to explain it better because maybe then it would stop confusing him so much. It’s like suddenly the three of them are closer than they ever were before, but not just in the bedroom—it’s in everything else, too. Dinner beforehand and at work and when he texts Alex, there’s an intimacy that just wasn’t there before.

It’s something new, they’re closer than they were, but nothing changes. And it should be weird, but it’s _not_. It’s _different_ , but fundamentally, everything is exactly the same.

That’s the strangest part of this whole thing.

\---

He’s humming on Friday, pen dancing across his paper as he applies himself to his report with vigor. Wes gives him the stinkeye all day until he finally snaps, “What is wrong with you?”

Travis flashes him a sunny grin and a peace sign. “Nothing.”

“You’re humming. And you’re doing your paperwork without complaining.” Wes narrows his eyes. “Are you sick?”

“You’re complaining about any sickness that makes me do my paperwork? Dude, you’re weird.” Travis signs his report with a flourish, sets it aside, and grabs the next one. “No, I’m just in a good mood. Got a date tonight.”

Wes’s hand jerks across his page, knocking his phone out of the cradle. “A _date?”_

Travis doesn’t understand Wes’s shock. “Yes, a _date_. It’s what us single people do when we have free time.” He grins smugly, spinning his pen over his fingers. “Her name is Melinda and I met her outside the bookstore and she thinks I’m _charming_.”

Wes scoffs, glaring at his report. “Well, you have a way of misleading people.”

“Hey!” Travis glowers at his partner, unexpectedly hurt. Sure, it’s nothing Wes hasn’t said before, but it’s not like Wes to say it so maliciously. Wes may grumble about Travis’s dates, but he doesn’t usually aim to shut Travis’s happiness down, so what the hell? It’s not like this affects Wes at all.

_Oh_. Wait—

Travis leans over his desk, voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “You didn’t, ah, want me to come over tonight, did you? I mean, you didn’t say anything, but I can totally reschedule with Melinda, it’s fine…”

Wes scowls and pushes him away. “It’s fine. I’m sure Alex and I can manage by ourselves for one night. Go have fun.”

Wes is in a pissy mood the rest of the day. Travis has no idea.

\---

Melinda is great. She’s funny and beautiful and she obligingly laughs at Travis’s jokes, no matter how lame. She’s smart and builds robots as a hobby, how cool is that, and basically she’s awesome.

Travis just isn’t feeling it. There’s just…something missing, something he can’t quite explain, and he keeps poking the feeling like that will reveal the answer. It kind of puts a damper on the evening, and at the end of the night when he kisses Melinda there’s _nothing_. No spark, no tingle of anticipation, not even a particularly great desire to climb into bed with her.

She’s all kinds of awesome, but there’s just something wrong with her.

Or maybe with him.

Travis heads home, poking that lack-of-something like a kid who just lost a tooth, but he can’t figure it out.

\---

“How’re things going?” he asks, almost two months after this whole thing has started, and almost a week after that terrible date with Melinda.

Wes glances up, brow furrowed. “Hmm?”

“You know.” Travis waves a lazy hand in the air. “With you and Alex. How are things?”

Wes gives him a frighteningly blank look, like he doesn’t actually know what Travis is talking about. “What?”

“You and Alex.” Travis says the words slowly, enunciates them clearly like that will help them sink into Wes’s brain easier. “Are things…better? Because of…” He makes the hand motion again, a sort of circling motion that is supposed to encompass the three of them.

Wes blinks, opens his mouth. “Um…” He pauses, purses his lips, and clicks his pen a few times, like he’s trying to find the words. Which shouldn’t be so hard, really, this kind of seems like an easy yes or no question.

“Is something wrong?” he asks gently. Travis hasn’t _noticed_ any distance between Wes and Alex lately, but that doesn’t mean they’re not putting up a front when he’s there and fighting when he’s gone. (He had foster families like that, all smiles and sunshine out in public but the second the doors closed…)

“No,” Wes says slowly, still frowning. “No, we’re…fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Okay. Good.” Travis turns back to his own work, and now _he’s_ frowning because his partner is being _weird_. It really wasn’t _that_ difficult a question.

After a minute, Wes asks, “What about you?” and now it’s Travis’s turn to draw a blank. Wes elaborates. “You know, the bookstore girl. Melanie? Maria?”

“Melinda?” 

“Yeah, her. How’s that going?”

“Oh. It’s…uh, it’s not.” Travis ducks his head, embarrassed for reasons he can’t explain even a little. “We stopped seeing each other a while ago.”

“Oh.” Wes frowns, shifts in his seat. “Then who are you seeing this week?”

Travis fidgets. “Um. No one.” Wes sputters disbelievingly, and Travis scowls at him. “Really. I’m just…I don’t know. Just not feeling it.”

“Okay.” Wes looks at his report, but he doesn’t start writing, just clicks his pen, click- _click_ , click- _click_ , looking pensive.

He catches Wes watching him speculatively the rest of the day, but he doesn’t think much of it. Wes is kind of strange anyway

\---

Looking back, that’s when things start to change.

\---

It starts with a touch.

Travis doesn’t even notice it at first. They’re working on a case, tossing ideas back and forth and scribbling notes, and Wes passes him a photo to look at. Their fingers brush as the picture transfers hands, and it’s such a nothing touch Travis doesn’t register it, doesn’t even think about it until later. He’s touched complete strangers more intimately.

It’s not until he’s at home, crawling into bed, that he realizes how odd that actually was. Because Wes doesn’t touch people like that, Wes hoards touches like a dragon hoards gold. Wes has a very clearly defined Personal Bubble and he doesn’t just randomly brush his fingers with other people. Hell, Wes and Alex are _married_ , and outside of the bedroom Travis rarely sees Wes touch her like that. Which means…

What does that mean?

Travis stays up late into the night trying to puzzle it out, and he doesn’t come any closer to a clue.

\---

He starts noticing it more, little touches that seem oddly out of character for his partner. Fingers brushing when they pass things between them, bumping shoulders or arms when they’re walking. And it’s not just touching, either—Wes stands closer, hovering further inside Travis’s personal space, and he doesn’t even seem to notice. Like he doesn’t _care_ , except Travis knows Wes is _very_ particular about his personal space, because their first year together Travis learned _exactly_ what the boundaries around Wes were.

And now Wes is throwing them all out the window.

Maybe it’s the sex? Travis has seen the man naked, has gotten intimate with Wes on more than one occasion. That could have a positive effect on the whole personal space thing.

He’ll have to ask Alex sometime, see if this sort of thing started happening when she and Wes got together the first time around.

Not that Travis _minds_ it, or anything. He’s always been a tactile persona, and if Wes wants to loosen up a little, hey, Travis isn’t gonna argue.

But this whole thing started because Wes and Alex were having problems. Travis doesn’t want to _be_ one of those problems.

\---

Maybe Wes doesn’t realize he’s doing it. For a successful detective who used to be a high-class lawyer, Wes can be kind of oblivious when it comes to the interpersonal stuff. Like just this morning, the girl at the coffee shop was _totally_ flirting with Wes, and okay, sure, Wes is married but that doesn’t mean he’s _blind_. But the flirting, it just flew right over his head, like he didn’t even realize it was happening.

This tells Travis that however it happened, _Alex_ was probably the one who asked Wes out the first time, and all the times afterward right up to their wedding, because Wes is just…it’s sad, really.

Maybe it’s the sex. (Probably it’s the sex.) Travis has joined in their married shenanigans so now Wes is _comfortable_ with him in a way he wasn’t before, now he’s letting his guard down and getting all touchy-feely. And that’s not necessarily a _bad_ thing, Wes could always use a little loosening up, except Travis needs to make sure this isn’t going the wrong way. This is all about Wes and _Alex’s_ relationship, not Wes and Travis’s.

He thinks about mentioning it. Because Wes probably has no clue, since he’s kind of dumb like that, so Travis will simply drop a casual line in the conversation, bring it to Wes’s attention, and then Wes will realize what’s happening and back off a little, He’ll stop brushing their fingers and standing so close and—

Oh, jesus, that hurts. Travis grimaces, presses the heel of his hand into the skin above his heart to try and ease some of the sudden sharp burn that spikes through him.

He must make some small noise, because Wes glances up, eyes him once, and clicks his pen twice. “What’s wrong?”

“Heartburn. Wow, I didn’t think I ate anything _that_ spicy.”

“You want some Tums?” Wes pulls open his bottom drawer, the one that not only Travis but _everyone_ regularly raids when they feel a headache (or the sniffles or anything else) coming on because not only does Wes have a first aid kit in there, he’s got enough OTC medication to stock a pharmacy. The Boy Scouts have nothing on Wesley Mitchell when it comes to being prepared.

Travis makes a grabby motion for the bottle, at the same time bitching, “Why do you have Tums? What have you ever eaten that’s given you heartburn?” Wes is not the quintessential white boy, in that he has eaten Travis’s mama’s tamales and survived, but he still tends to avoid anything _too_ spicy, for his digestion or something, Travis usually stops listening by that point.

Wes absently clicks his pen again. “I got them after that thing with Ricky’s Tacos.”

Travis grimaces for an entirely different reason. Oh, Ricky’s Tacos. So good, and _yet_ … “Man, that wasn’t heartburn, that was you impersonating Linda Blair.”

“Better than what you got,” Wes says, saccharine sweet, and Travis flips him off. Wes got projectile vomiting and a queasy stomach for a day. Travis was stuck on a toilet for two days, cursing his life and wishing he were dead.

Ricky’s Tacos didn’t last long after that. Which is a shame. They used to make a damn good burrito.

And wow, that’s weird. Thinking about Ricky’s Tacos made the heartburn go away. Huh. Travis pops a Tums just to be safe.

“So,” Wes says, clicking his pen again, click- _click_ , click- _click_ , a nervous little tic that belies the studiously casual air he’s giving off. “Are you coming over tonight?”

Really, Travis doesn’t know why Wes gets so nervous and hesitant and fidgety every time he asks that. It’s not like Travis is gonna say _no_.

“Course I am. What’s for dinner?”

The pen clicking stops, and Wes glances up, a shy, pleased smile curling his lips up. “I found this recipe for vindaloo I want to try.”

Travis snorts, holding out the bottle of Tums. “Speaking of heartburn…”

Smiling absently, Wes clicks his pen a few more times, eyes skimming the report in front of him. “You should stay the night,” he says, as blandly as though he’s talking about the weather.

Travis almost drops the Tums. “What? I— _what?”_

His partner looks up, and it’s funny, Wes usually has no idea how much he shows on his face, but right now Travis can’t read him at _all_. “You should stay the night,” he says again, like this is totally a conversation they should be having in the middle of the squad room.

Travis gapes at him. “ _Why?”_

Wes shrugs, staring levelly at him, pen going click- _click_ , click- _click_ , click- _click_. “It’s always so late when you leave. You shouldn’t be driving at that time of night, especially after being up all day. So just spend the night. Neither of us mind.”

Travis opens his mouth to protest, because he can’t _stay_ , what is Wes _thinking_ , Travis is just there for Wes and Alex and once he’s done his part he doesn’t need to be there. _Staying_ would disrupt the routine, might disrupt _other_ things, and all of a sudden they’ve got this whole touching thing to worry about, he doesn’t need to add _this_ to the mix.

Before he can say a word, Wes says, “I’ll make pancakes in the morning.”

Travis’s mouth snaps shut. He studies his partner’s face, looking for… _something_ , but Wes is being surprisingly inscrutable. Travis can’t figure out his angle.

For all intents and purposes, it looks exactly like what it seems—Wes inviting him to stay after a long day because it’s late.

And, well, Travis does love pancakes.

“Next time, lead with that,” Travis declares, holding out the Tums once more.

Wes smiles, eyes all crinkled up like he gets when he’s _really_ pleased with something. He reaches out for the bottle, fingers stroking along Travis’s as he takes it back. It sends a little spark up Travis’s arm, lodging in his chest right about where his mystery heartburn flared up.

Travis is totally going to talk to Wes about the whole touching thing, he is.

Tomorrow.

\---

As she’s slipping out of the bedroom that night, Travis pauses in the doorway, looking back at them. The beautiful couple, bathed in the streetlight from the windows, curled up together, and Travis feels a short little pang in his chest. Absently, he rubs the heel of his palm over his heart, trying to push the pain away.

Yeah. Definitely gonna have to have a long talk with his partner tomorrow. He’s not going to risk ruining _that_ for whatever boundaries Wes has deconstructed between them.

He heads to the spare bedroom, trying to plot out how he’s going to bring it up.

He ends up staring at the ceiling for an hour without coming up with anything.

\---

He’s not sure what wakes him, a slight noise or just the sensation that he’s being watched, but it makes him snap awake, sitting upright and staring wildly at the door.

Alex, leaning against the doorframe, meets his eyes, brow slightly furrowed. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” He looks around the Mitchell’s guest bedroom, but he can’t see anything that would put that look on her face. He was very careful about not messing anything up, so the only thing out of place is him. He looks back at her. “What’s up?”

She shifts, still frowning. “You didn’t stay.”

“Duh.” Travis is momentarily distracted by the way her satiny robe sweeps the top of her thighs when she moves, and thus misses the way her face changes. “But I didn’t leave.” When he glances up again, Alex is wearing a bland, curious face, the kind Wes wears when he’s working a puzzle out in his head. Must be a lawyer thing.

He resists the urge to tug the covers up to his chest like a girl in a rom-com. For one, he’s not a girl in a rom-com. For another, she’s already seen it all, so it’s not like he’d be _hiding_ anything.

She shifts again, making the satin robe do wonderfully shimmery things, then says, “Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.”

Travis perks up. “Pancakes?”

“Of course.” The smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling just like Wes’s do, then says, “See you down there,” and departs.

Travis listens to her footsteps move down the stairs, can just barely hear the murmur of her voice as she greets Wes in the kitchen. He flops back onto his pillow, grinning goofily at the ceiling.

Oh yeah, he could get used to this.

\---

Travis spends the morning trying to figure out how to bring the touching thing up. He gets no further than, “So, Wes…” Or maybe he’ll go with the cliché but classic, “Wes, we need to talk.” Of course, after that brilliant opening he’s got nothing, so he’s still working on that part when Wes comes back from the break room and sets a red lunchbag on Travis’s desk.

Travis stares at the bag. “What’s this?”

“Why don’t you open it and see?”

Carefully, like maybe it’s going to explode or something (probably not, but you never know) he opens the lunchbag.

He stares at the blue-lidded Tupperware inside. “What’s this?”

He can almost hear the rattle as Wes rolls his eyes. “It’s lunch, you dumbass.”

Travis’s brain stutters. “What? I don’t—why…?” He pulls out the Tupperware. Inside is some sort of pasta dish that is probably delicious. “What?”

When he glances over, Wes is staring at his own lunch, and the tips of his ears are red. “Well. You know. You, ah…you stayed over, and I was already making my lunch and Alex’s, so one more wasn’t…” He coughs and rubs the back of his neck, fidgeting in his chair. “Anyway.”

Travis looks down at the Tupperware, something fluttery and warm tickling his stomach as he carefully pries the lid off. “Thanks, Wes.”

\---

After that, lunch just becomes a thing. If Travis stays the night, then Wes packs him a little lunch for the next day. He keeps snacks in the car and always seems to have something on hand if Travis is feeling peckish, and Travis totally isn’t complaining here, but it does make him a little confused?

But hey, if Wes wants to lavish him with free food, Travis is seriously not complaining.

Then one day he finds, underneath the napkin in the lunchbag, a little package of cookies, which is an unexpected surprise because cookies are not a typical staple of a Wesley Mitchell Healthy Meal (TM). He pulls it out, which is when he spots the Post-it note on the back.

There’s nothing much on the Post-it note, just a quick heart and a capital ‘A’. But that sure as hell ain’t A for Wes, which means Alex put it there, which means…

Travis stares at the note for a solid twenty minutes, trying to puzzle out just what is happening here.

\---

When Travis stays over, Wes makes pancakes in the morning, and every once in a while he’ll throw in chocolate chips. (“How did you know I loved chocolate chip pancakes?” Travis had asked the first time. “Because,” Wes replied semi-sweetly, stirring the batter, “I know at heart you’re an eight-year-old boy, it’s not hard to guess what you’d like.” What commenced was a ten minute food fight Alex made both of them clean up. They were almost late for work.)

For the sake of convenience, Travis keeps a spare change of clothes in the guest bedroom. If they’re heading into work, it’s just easier, because it means they don’t have to stop by Travis’s place so he can change, and it also means he can sleep in an extra twenty minutes in the morning, which is never _not_ an awesome thing.

Every day after Travis stays over, he gets a little homemade lunch. Wes is still doing the touchy-feely thing at work, and Travis and Alex are texting more than ever, talking about everything under the sun.

Travis is pretty sure this isn’t how things are supposed to be going. Sex-therapy threesomes shouldn’t involve lunch and spending the night and pancakes in the morning. And yet…

Well.

To be honest, Travis kind of likes what’s happening, even if he doesn’t fully understand what’s going on.

\---

And it becomes quickly clear that Travis _really_ has no idea what’s going on. The food continues, and the touching continues, and it’s strange and a little overwhelming, to be honest, because Travis totally doesn’t mind and maybe even likes it a little, but he’s not sure _why_ it’s happening. Everything is supposed to be Wes and Alex so he is…and it’s just…

It makes his head hurt.

He keeps telling himself he’s going to say something. He _needs_ to say something, before things get out of hand and he ruins everything. And he will say something. He totally will. The next time they’re all together, he’ll bring it up.

But then Wes smiles at him over the rim of his glass, and Alex tangles her feet with his under the table, and he thinks putting it off one more day can’t hurt anything.

Next time. Definitely for sure.

\---

Sometimes, Travis feels like he’s missing something major here, some unspoken trail of thought passing between Alex and Wes that goes over his head completely.

But that’s probably just the confusion from all the weirdness. And anyway, whatever the unspoken _thing_ is, at least it doesn’t seem to be _bad_. Travis knows how to read people, and Wes and Alex are…they’re fine. Great, really.

It’s just very strange and confusing all around.

\---

They’re trolling through phone records like good little detectives, and Travis is about ready to throw his pages in the trash and bang his head on the table because _this_. This is not the kind of detective work he signed up for. Racing after bad guys with his heart in his throat and fire in his lungs, _that’s_ what he signed up for. He is _more_ than happy to leave this sort of thing to Wes.

“Just kill me now,” he groans, slumping in his chair. “I don’t care anymore, just make it end.”

“Oh come on.” Wes rises, coming up behind him. He places his hands on Travis’s shoulders and leans over. “It’s not that bad. You only have…” He peeks at the pile of records on Travis’s desk “…six more pages to go.”

“When Amy asks me why I’m crying, I’m going to blame you,” Travis mutters, leaning back.

Wes wordlessly squeezes his shoulders, either in commiseration or mockery, because lord knows Wes doesn’t have six more pages of fucking phone records to go through.

And then he learns forward, his cheek almost brushing Travis’s, so close Travis can feel the warmth of his skin, and Travis’s breath catches in his throat a little bit and his heart stutters because what? What is happening here?

If he turns his head, he’s close enough to press a kiss to Wes’s cheek, and the urge to just _do_ it, fuck what they’re coworkers think, is almost overwhelming.

Then one of Wes’s hands detach from his shoulders, and he points at Travis’s desk. “What’s this number for?”

“What?” It takes half a millennium for Travis to pull his mind back to the work at hand. When he finally follows Wes’s pointing hand to the phone records in front of him, it takes another small eternity to focus on the papers on his desk. “Um. I don’t know. It’s unlisted.”

“Huh.” Wes’s hand returns to Travis’s shoulder, and then it _lingers there_ what the _fuck_. “That’s weird. The same number shows up on my records.

“Really?” Travis sits up, stretching to grab the pile of pages on Wes’s desk. Wes’s hands don’t move one inch. Frowning, Travis compares the two lists, running his fingers down the page until he finds the same unlisted number. “Huh. Will you look at that.” With a grin, he twists to look up at Wes. “I think we found ourselves a lead.” 

Wes beams down at him and moves to his desk. The warmth of his hands lingers a long time.

\---

The lead turns out to be a big fat bust. They spend all day running it down, trying to trace it, and in the end what do they have to show for it? Nada. Zip. A whole lot of _nothing_.

Well, Travis has a bruise on his shin from an inconveniently placed box he ran into, but that doesn’t really count.

“If this were a TV show,” he grumbles, falling into his chair, “we’d already be at the end of the third act with our guy in cuffs and I could go home.”

Wes rolls his eyes, shuffling paper on his desk. “But alas, we are not in a TV show, so get your ass over here and look at this with me.”

Travis groans but obligingly rolls his chair over. Everything they’ve gathered so far is spread across the top of Wes’s desk; the case file, crime scene photographs, notes, those stupid phone records. Just looking at it all makes Travis’s head ache. He groans again, slumping in his chair, the day catching up to him in a wave. They’ve been going non-stop since just before lunch, and the rosy glow of adrenaline has finally worn off. He can feel every ache and overdrawn muscle in his body, and his shin hurts like a bitch.

“What say we just put a pin in this till tomorrow?” he mumbles.

A soft weight lands on his shoulder, and Travis freezes. Slowly, oh so slowly, he turns his head.

The day has apparently caught up to Wes , too, because he’s practically boneless in his chair, slumped over the arm so his cheek is resting on Travis’s shoulder, springy blonde hair brushing Travis’s nose. His partner is gazing blankly at the desk, the same exhaustion Travis feels written on every line of his face

Unable to help himself, Travis quickly looks around the room to see if there are any witnesses. There aren’t; the squad room is completely empty this time of night, because most sane people have already gone home for the evening.

Besides, he realizes dimly, _he_ wouldn’t be witnessing this is if there was anyone else around—if there was even the cleaning lady in the room, Wes would be sitting straight up and doing his level best to hide how tired he feels. Like he has something to prove to everyone else, like by showing weakness he’s somehow letting everyone down.

But not Travis.

There’s something about that, something that makes tingles run through him, but Travis is too tired to examine it any further. Instead, he brings his hand up, curls it around Wes’s shoulder and pulls his partner close.

“Hey Wes,” he murmurs, absently nuzzling the top of Wes’s head.

Wes makes a vague sleepy sound.

The warm affection that floods through him makes a fond smile cross his lips, but luckily, no one is there to see. Very softly, he whispers, “If you’re asleep, I get to drive your car home.”

“ ‘m not sleeping,” Wes says instantly, pushing himself upright, and Travis can’t help but laugh. Oh man, Wes is just way too easy sometimes.

“Come on,” he says, resting his hand on the nape of Wes’s neck. “Let’s go home. Maybe it’ll all be clearer in the morning.”

Wes leans into the touch for a solid ten seconds before he starts to gather his stuff.

\---

Since Travis spent the night last night, his bike is still at Wes’s place, which is nice and convenient, so he rides home with his partner. Alex comes out to greet them, takes one look at their faces, and orders them both to bed.

“I’m fine,” Travis grumbles, half-heartedly batting her away. Not enough to prevent her from gripping his elbow and steering him inside. 

“You’ll stay,” she orders, guiding him to the stairs. Wes is already halfway to the top, and Travis takes a moment to admire his partner’s ass, because there are just some things that need to be done no matter how tired one is.

“I couldn’t get it up with a crane right now,” he informs her, because really, he only stays for the hanky-panky and that is just not happening tonight.

Alex gives him a little smile and squeezes his elbow. “You’ll stay,” she says, and this time it’s less of a demand and more of a request. Travis stares at her, trying to suss out her motives, but all he gets is a warm smile back and another little squeeze on his elbow.

Confused, he lets her lead him upstairs. He quickly changes and does a perfunctory once-over of his teeth, the heads for the guest room. Once more, Alex catches his arm and leads him to someplace he wasn’t intending to go: this time the master bedroom. Travis blinks muzzily at the bed for a long minute, trying to sort it out what’s happening here, then decides it doesn’t particularly matter. There is a soft fluffy bed and Travis is ready to crash—he’s not going to overthink it.

Since Travis’s evening routine doesn’t involve nearly as much flossing as Wes’s does, the bed is beautifully empty. Travis flops facedown in the center with a happy little sigh and doesn’t move again. He can hear the other two, Alex moving around the room, Wes washing his hands in the bathroom, but those are everyday noises and Travis can’t muster the energy to check any of it out.

A few moments later, the bed dips on both sides, and Alex, who is much more coherent and clear-headed right now, somehow manages to wriggle the comforter free from his dead weight and lay it on top of him. He can feel Wes on one side, a careful few inches separating them because Wes has boundaries and it’s not until he’s deeply asleep that the Cuddle Monster attacks, and Alex is on his other side, pressed closed because she doesn’t have the same reservations Wes does.

There’s something about this, his mind points out, something that’s very wrong with this situation, but the exhaustion of the day is pulling him under, and he falls asleep before he can work it out.

\---

It’s a slow awakening, gentle, easing him into consciousness with a quiet touch. It starts slowly, a subtle awareness of warmth and pressure, of other bodies around him, surrounding him, holding him down but not constraining him.

He can feel Wes behind him, spooned up against his back, an arm thrown around his waist and his nose buried in the back of Travis’s neck because what he’s learned with this whole venture is that Wes cannot help himself, he will glomm onto the closest thing while he’s sleeping.

Alex is in front of him, tucked into the circle of his arms, gentle breaths tickling his collarbone, and when Travis opens his eyes he smiles into the dark curls in front of his nose. Their knees are intertwined, one of her feet thrown over his calf, and one of her arms crosses with Wes’s over his waist.

There’s nothing sexual about it. Sensual, yes, the press of skin on skin and the heat of their bodies warming him where he’s cold, but it’s intimacy, not sex

It’s _contentment_. And it’s almost perfect.

He exhales softly, letting his eyes flutter closed once more. He thinks he could easily stay here forever, tucked between his two favorite people—

His eyes snap open. This time the look he gives Alex is not one of fond contentment—this look is more akin to the horror a victim on TV feels when the police bust in while she’s standing over the dead body of her husband with the murder weapon in hand.

Not a particularly appealing metaphor. But apt, in this case, he feels. Very apt.

Because he’s just found the dead body, and he’s the one holding the knife.

Carefully, he extricates himself from tangled limbs, trying to curb the rising panic. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Everything is _fine_ , he just needs to _not be here_ for a few minutes or hours or _ever_ because _holy fuck_ —

No. It’s fine. He’s totally not panicking.

Alex makes a sleepy, disgruntled sound when he finally eases out of bed, and Wes makes a grasping motion with his hands. Travis shushes them, smoothes the covers over them. He knows in no time at all, without Travis in the middle, Wes will latch onto Alex, and Alex will cuddle into her husband, and it will be like nothing happened.

Everything is _fine_.

He makes it all the way to the bathroom down the hall before he freaks the fuck out

\---

He woke up slow.

That’s the clue-by-four that makes him realize what’s happening. He woke up slow, sleepy and content in their arms. He _never_ wakes up slow like that, not outside of his own trailer, not with someone else next to him.

He has issues. He knows that. Not as many as Wes, of course, because Wes is just a big bundle of neuroses—or maybe Travis is just better at hiding his issues from everyone, including himself.

He can’t sleep with other people around. It has nothing to do with sex—he can manage sex. He just can’t _sleep_. Not comfortably, at least. He always sleeps tense, and wakes up at the drop of a hat, on full alert. It has to do with his abandonment issues or his commitment issues or, hell, one of the many other problems in his fucked up little brain, he doesn’t even know.

Wes has his boundaries. Travis does too, they’re just not so physical. Travis has his trailer, his little personal sanctuary, and sometimes he’ll invite someone else inside, but at the end of the day, it’s still _his_. He can wake up safe there, slow and easy, knowing he’s secure.

This. This is not his. This will _never_ be his.

He woke up slow.

He is in so much fucking trouble.

\---

The entire goal of this was to help Wes and Alex with their marriage. Spice up their married life with a little bit of excitement in their sex life, and hey, Travis is always down for sex and he’s always happy to help. No big deal.

That’s all it is. Just helping two friends and getting some free sex in return.

It’s not supposed to be like this. It’s just sex; he’s not supposed to let _feelings_ get involved.

Travis grips the edges of the sink and tries to take deep breaths, because he’s pretty sure he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, and the last thing he needs is to explain why he passed out on the bathroom floor to Alex and Wes when they wake up. It’s not working particularly well.

How the hell did this _happen?_ He’s _good_ at sex with no strings attached. He’s really, really good at not letting his feelings get involved. So why _now_ , why with _these_ two? Sure, they’re his best friends, his partner and his partner’s wife, and he adores them, but they are not _his_. They will _never_ be his, no matter how much he wishes for it.

(don’t wish, don’t dream, you’ll only get your heart broken)

He’ll never get it. He’s not supposed to _want_ this.

He learned a long time ago that wanting things he’ll never get will only hurt him in the end.

He thought he knew better.

“Fuck.” He slumps over the sink, trembling, and the deep breaths aren’t fucking helping because he still feels like he’s about to fall over. “Fuck. _Fuck_.”

It was just sex. It was never supposed to be anything more.

\---

He goes back to the guest room, but he doesn’t sleep. He thinks about leaving, climbing on his bike and heading back to his trailer in his warehouse. It would be easier, better, give him time to wrap his head around everything. He _should_.

He doesn’t.

\---

They’re both in the kitchen when he finally creeps out of the guest room. Travis pauses on the stairs, watching from a safe distance. Close enough to seen, not close enough to touch.

It hits him all over again, watching them move around each other, a seamless unit made of two people. If he goes down there, he knows they’ll make room for him, but they shouldn’t have to—this isn’t about _him_.

Abruptly, he clatters down the stairs, zooming right past the kitchen towards the front door. He can’t stay here.

Their confusion follows him, but he doesn’t stop. “Gotta go, guys, I haven’t been home in like three days.” He waves over his shoulder without looking back. “See ya at work, Wes!”

He’s on his bike and gone before they even make it to the front door.

\---

The problem is, it’s not just the sleeping. It’s _everything_. It’s the way Wes stands too close when they’re working and how Alex’s gives him a saucy, smirky wink right before they gang up on Wes. It’s little packed lunches and pancake breakfast and car rides and dinners and—

Travis wants _everything_.

Is this what it’s like for other people, he wonders? One day they just wake up and realize they want to spend the rest of their lives with someone, morning, day, and night, not just sex but doing the dishes and arguing over chores and everything in between. It’s never… Travis has never felt like this before, not about _anyone_ , he’s always been happy with just the sex, which is why too many of his relationships have failed in the past. They wanted more, and he never did, could never give it to them.

Now he’s finally found it, but Wes and Alex are _together_ and Travis is just there for the sex, and he can’t—

There’s only one thing to do.

He has to break it off.

\---

The best time would be when they’re all together, the three of them, so neither of them have to hear it secondhand. But not before their _extracurricular_ activities, because he remembers how well that went last time.

So when Wes says a few days later, “Come on, Travis, we’re meeting Alex for lunch,” Travis thinks _Perfect_ and ignores the way his stomach twists and his chest goes tight at the thought.

\---

“Do you like baseball?”

Travis’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. “Of course I like baseball. Who doesn’t like baseball?”

“I know, right?” Alex grins and rummages in her pure, coming up with an envelope. From the envelope she pulls out two tickets. “I won these in a contest at work, and _someone_ —not naming names,” she says as she points to Wes, “doesn’t want to go with me.”

“I don’t see the appeal,” Wes says archly.

Travis scoffs. “Appeal or not, you don’t turn down free baseball tickets.” He reaches across the table, and Alex places the tickets in his hand. When he takes a good look at the seats, though, he has to pause for a long minute, brain short-circuiting a little.

He finally looks up and says, very solemnly, “I would kill a man for these tickets.”

“Right, say that to the homicide detective beside you,” Wes grumbles, rolling his eyes, and Alex bursts into a delighted peal of laughter, and Travis…god, Travis just aches with a visceral _need_.

He’s going to miss this.

He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything Alex asks, “Are you doing anything Saturday?”

“Why?”

Her eyes flick meaningfully towards the tickets. Travis’s jaw drops. “No way. Seriously? _Me?”_

She shrugs, playfully pointing at her husband once more. “If I took him, he’d just complain about the food the entire time.”

“What?” Travis shakes his head. “Man, the food is the best part!”

“Stadium food is a heart attack waiting to happen, Travis, so I won’t subject myself to it,” Wes declares.

“I’m gonna eat twice as much to make up for how much of a buzzkill you are, Wes.”

“Great!” Alex claps her hands. “I’ll pick you up around noon?”

Well shit, that didn’t go as planned.

\---

Okay. As soon as the game is over, he’s gonna end it for real. Definitely. This time for sure.

\---

The game is _awesome_. Alex picks him up decked out in a jersey and cap, and she pulls out an extra one when she sees his faded LA Angels T-shirt—“I got it for Wes ages ago but he _refuses_ to wear it, so it’s up to you to pick up the slack, Travis.” They sing along with the radio on the way and buy foam fingers before finding their seats and god, they’re sitting so close Travis can practically see the sweat on the players’ faces.

They eat too many ballpark hot dogs and start the wave and Alex yells at the umpire so exuberantly Travis doesn’t even try to help, she has got this all under control. During the eighth inning, she steals a bite of his hot dog, but lets him have the rest of her soda to make up for it, and when the home team wins 16-10, she grabs him tight and they both jump around like idiots.

It’s amazing, and perfect, and it isn’t until they’re heading back home that Travis gets quiet, his gut twisting.

It was like the most perfect date ever, but he wasn’t on a date. He _wasn’t_.

(don’t wish don’t want don’t do that to yourself)

“You okay?” Alex asks as she walks him to his trailer. “You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden.”

“I…” _I think I love you_ , he doesn’t say, _can’t_ say. He grins, shakes his head. “I don’t know. Too much excitement, I guess.”

“But it was fun, wasn’t it?” Alex asks, and Travis looks at her—just _looks_ , at the way her eyes sparkle and the rush of color in her cheeks and how her whole body is still jazzed from the game and she’s just _vibrant_ , so full of life and energy and god, she’s beautiful. All he wants to do is lean down and kiss her, tangle his fingers in her hair and pull her close.

He keeps his hands to himself and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life.

“It was so much fun,” he tells her, and Travis—Travis is good at this, being fine even when he’s not.

Alex beams, bright as a perfect summer day. “Good. That means I expect you on game day.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Game day?”

“Oh, we’re totally having game day now.” She puts her hands on her hips and gives him a cocky little grin. “There’s no way I’m letting you go now that I know you can _truly_ appreciate baseball the way it was meant to be.”

“Well, it _is_ the American pastime.”

“ _Exactly_. So once the season starts, we’re having game day. It’ll be awesome.” She snaps her fingers a couple times, face lighting up with inspiration. “Hey, bring any of your family that likes baseball too. We’ll have a party. Wes can make delicious snacks.”

He could so easily shut this down, with just two little words: ‘We’re done.” But in the light of her enthusiasm, all the words he’s tempted to say dry up on his throat, and all he can do is chuckle a little. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Good.” Alex’s face softens, and she takes a step closer, her hand resting on his arm. “I’ll see you later, Travis.”

And then she leans up and kisses his cheek.

It’s a chaste kiss. It’s the kind of kiss people give family members they haven’t seen in a long time. But it sends a sharp zing through his body, makes him freeze because holy crap, is this okay? Wes isn’t here, and yes, Travis and Alex totally hung out together all day and it was a nothing kiss but _Wes isn’t here_ and Alex is _Wes’s_ , are they allowed to just be kissing like this? Wes being handsy and touchy-feely at work is one thing but this is—

Before he can open his mouth and blurt something stupid and panicky, Alex steps back, putting a respectable distance between them. “Remember,” she says, mock-sternly. “Game day. It’s happening.” And then she flashes finger guns at him, which is so wonderfully ridiculous he bursts out laughing.

Her face scrunches with amusement, and she heads for the warehouse door. “Goodnight, Travis,” she calls, and Travis watches her go with a smile lingering on his face.

His cheek still tingles long after she’s out of sight.

\---

He is in so much trouble.

\---

“It’s movie night at seven. You get to pick the movie,” Wes informs him as they’re packing up for the day, and Travis immediately tries to back out, but Wes rolls his eyes and says, “Oh come on, I know you don’t have any plans or you’d have been crowing about them all day, so just pick a movie and show up on time. Don’t worry about the popcorn, we’ve got that covered.” And then he’s breezing away before Travis can protest, and, well, _not_ showing up would just be rude and Travis’s many mamas raised him better than that.

So he shows up at six fifty-two with _Terminator_ (always a classic, can’t go wrong with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and a box of movie-theater popcorn (“ _Because_ , Wes, I didn’t trust that you would have butter on your popcorn, I bet you get that stuff with no butter that tastes like cardboard and I’m sorry but I cannot do that, man,”) and they squish onto the living room couch which isn’t as much of a hardship as it sounds because the Mitchell’s couch is fucking _fantastic_ , okay, Travis could live in this couch.

Alex puts her feet in Wes’s lap and steals Travis’s popcorn, which sparks a lively debate—“No, no, go eat your salted cardboard pieces, this is _mine_ ,” Travis says, hugging the bowl to his chest, and Alex gives him a _Look_ and says, “Travis, it is movie night and I want butter, now give me the damn popcorn.” That’s when Wes throws a pillow at both of them and says, “Will you shut _up?_ I can’t hear the dialogue!” to which Travis scoffs and says, “This is a classic, man, how do you not know every word already?” and that’s when Wes pauses the movie for seven minutes just to be contrary.

They all quote along with the famous, “I’ll be bahk” line, and halfway through the movie Travis unbends enough to eat Wes’s salty cardboard popcorn because his is gone, and by the time the credits roll both bowls of popcorn are empty on the floor and Alex’s head is in his lap and Wes’s arm is stretched across the back of the couch, fingers just barely brushing Travis’s shoulder, and Travis never wants to leave.

He closes his eyes and pushes the feeling away, but it’s too late. He’s already thought the thought.

\---

Next time, he promises. Next time he’ll end it for sure.

\---

“Have you ever been to a jazz club?” Wes asks out of nowhere.

“I can say, with all honesty, that the thought has never crossed my mind, Wes.”

That makes Wes grin, not one of his little smirks but a _real_ smile, that boyish grin full of sharp white teeth that makes his entire face light up like the fucking sun and shaves about ten years off his face. “Good,” he says, “Then this will be a treat. Wear something nice.”

And Travis wants to say no, but Wes is so excited he can’t bring himself to wipe that look away. Which is how he finds himself in the back of Wes’s car Saturday night, dressed in the only suit he owns, driving half an hour to get to Wes’s jazz club.

It’s not…terrible. Not really his kind of music, but it’s not as bad as he’d feared the moment Wes had said the words ‘jazz club’. It’s not depressing bluesy crap, and it’s not weird porn music. It’s lively and upbeat and the sort of music people can dance to.

Travis _does_ dance to it, pulling Alex in her popping ruby dress onto the floor. He doesn’t know any of the steps, but he has enthusiasm, which has to count for something the way Alex is laughing and dancing along. It’s actually kind of awesome.

When the song changes, Wes cuts in, and Travis heads for the bar. He leans against the counter, drink in hand, watching the two of them dance, half-tempted to leap out into the fray and see if they can’t make a two-person dance work with three people after all.

Travis swallows, orders another drink, and watches them glide across the floor. Guilt burns like a livewire in his belly.

\---

Next time, he swears. _Next time_.

\---

Their phones chime at the same time, alerting them to the presence of waiting text messages. Since they’re simply doing paperwork, and Travis is always ready to avoid paperwork, he whips his phone out and opens the text.

His brain stops a little bit.

It’s a picture—a selfie, actually—of Alex, in a slinky, deep purple babydoll, and it’s got lace edges and an opening right down the middle exposing acres of tummy and it makes Travis’s throat go dry. There’s no caption, just a flirty winky face, and yeah, Travis has got nothing here.

He looks up, to—apologize, maybe, for opening this very clearly wrong text, only to find Wes staring down at his own phone, cheeks red and ears pink. The ears are a very big clue that this is embarrassment, not anger, because Wes’s ears just don’t get that colorful when he’s upset. And Travis can think of really only one thing that would make Wes blush like that, so he looks down at the text again.

Group text. Sent to him _and_ Wes.

Okay. Right then. In _that_ case…

“Who knew purple was such a good color on Alex?” he muses.

Wes chokes.

\---

Seriously, next time for real.

\---

He wakes early, lonely in the wide expanse of the guest room with no one else there. It had been torturous to drag himself away from the comfort of the master bed in the middle of the night, to leave Wes and Alex and crawl into the cold guest bed.

_Why are you still doing this to yourself?_ he demands from his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His reflection, of course, gives him no valid answers.

“I am so fucked,” he sighs, and he shakes his head and goes downstairs.

Amazingly, he’s not the last one awake. By all appearances, he is actually the _first_ one awake.

Huh. Okay. He can work with this.

He gets the coffee started, sets out the mugs—Alex’s _#1 Lawyer_ mug, Wes’s _Don’t take it personally, I’m always like this_ mug (courtesy of Travis, of course), the dark blue mug with the handcuffs handle that Travis had appropriated the first night he’d stayed over. (Travis got Wes that mug, too. Wes has a sadly appalling lack of fun novelty mugs. Travis is working on rectifying that.)

Since he has sat at the table and watched Wes do this enough times, Travis gets out the ingredients for pancake batter and starts cooking. Despite Wes’s belief that Travis is a helpless child who cannot sustain himself, Travis can, in fact, make pancakes and has done so many times for his foster nieces and nephews.

By the time Wes and Alex stumble downstairs, Travis has a plate of fluffy, golden-brown pancakes ready and waiting and is watching another batch on the griddle. Wes, unsurprisingly, goes right for the coffee maker—for a guy who touts the benefits of healthy living, it’s kind of hilarious that he can’t even function in the morning without a cup or two of caffeine in him.

Alex grabs her mug, pours her coffee, and takes a sip, sidling up behind Travis. “You didn’t have to cook breakfast,” she murmurs, pressing against his back and leaning her chin on his shoulder.

From this distance, he can smell her shampoo, feel the press of her sleep-warmed body against his. It makes him a little horny, but more than that, it just kind of makes him feel cozy and fond and all sorts of things he’s not supposed to be feeling.

He swallows and carefully starts sliding the latest batch onto the serving plate. “I wanted to.”

She hums, takes a sip of her coffee. “Well,” she murmurs, snagging one of the ready pancakes and taking a bite. “Thank you very much.”

And then she rises on her toes, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and wanders off to find a plate.

Travis doesn’t move for a second, unable to process. Then he panics a little bit, because Wes is standing _right there_ , and okay, the man hasn’t had his coffee yet but that doesn’t mean he’s so out of it he didn’t notice Alex kissing Travis. And Alex isn’t supposed to be kissing Travis, because he may be having sex with them but _they are married_ and kissing in non-sexy situations totally crosses the line.

Cautiously, Travis glances over at his partner, prepared for jealousy or anger or even just mild upset.

Instead, he finds Wes leaning against the counter, mug cradled in his hands, watching Travis with a fond, sleepy smile on his face. He doesn’t look jealous or angry or upset at all.

Travis was totally prepared for some kind of negative emotion. He’s not sure what to do about this.

Wes takes advantage of Travis’s hesitation to push off the counter and cross the kitchen. “Morning,” he says softly, leaning in and pressing a firm kiss to Travis’s mouth. Travis doesn’t move, can’t move, can’t even…

What?

The other man pulls back, grabbing the plate of pancakes. “Thanks for breakfast,” he says, and heads for the table, like it’s no big deal, like this is just their normal breakfast routine.

He can hear them at the table, silverware clinking and the gentle cadence of early morning conversation, but for a long time all Travis can do is stand at the stove, fingers pressed against his tingling lips.

\---

Next time…

\---

He wants it.

He lays in his bed, staring at the ceiling of his trailer, unable to sleep. It feels strange, wrong, being here, even though this is his home. He feels like he should be across town, in that bedroom squished between Wes and Alex. This afternoon, when he was leaving work, he almost turned towards the Mitchell home instead of his warehouse, without even thinking about it.

It’s not just the sex he wants. God, it’d be so much _easier_ if it was just the sex. But it’s _everything_. The way Alex laughs at his stupid jokes and Wes hides his smiles but everyone knows it’s there because it’s shining out of his eyes. It’s the way Wes always starts out on the edge of the couch during movie night, but ends up pressed against his side, Alex draped across both of their laps, and Travis and Alex keep up a running commentary on the movie and Wes shushes them and makes dire pronouncements about what will happen if they so much as _think_ about spilling popcorn on the carpet. It’s flirting over the dinner table and good morning kisses and how he’s _safe_ at the Mitchell house, safe enough to sleep, and in some ways Wes and Alex’s house feels more like his home than his trailer does.

He wants it, but it’s more than that. It’s like a craving, deep in his gut, a visceral _need_ to be with them, to be part of their lives, breakfasts and dinners and late nights curled in bed and lazy days where they do nothing at all. Hospital stays and vacations and fucking furniture shopping, god, he _aches_ for it.

He never needed it before. Never bothered to try and find it, because he’d learned a long time ago that he wasn’t going to get it. Relationships never last; he learned that before he was even conscious of it, abandoned on a firehouse stoop, and it was a lesson he had pounded into him with every move, every new family. He didn’t need anyone, didn’t _want_ anyone, and maybe he had a hand in breaking up his short-lived relationships, but it wasn’t like they tried that hard to hold onto him either.

Travis groans and presses the heels of his hands into this eyelids until he sees fireworks. “This is so fucking _wrong_ ,” he groans, drumming his heels on his mattress like a kid having a tantrum. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with me?”

He couldn’t just go and fall in love like every other normal person out there. No, he had to go fall for _two_ people, his two most favorite people, and _god_ they are _married_. To _each other_. Bad enough he’d fallen for just one, knowing he couldn’t have them, but _both?_

It was about sex. It was _just about sex_. Why couldn’t he… Why did he have to…

Travis makes a sound, a little like a sob and a little like a wail, and drops his hands, staring blankly at the ceiling above him.

He can’t do this anymore.

\---

It was always so _easy_ before. The others had never lasted, but he’d never… okay, he’d _almost_ never…alright, so _a lot of_ the time, he didn’t sabotage the relationships directly. But there were limits he never let anyone cross—he didn’t allow his partners to get too close, because he’d learned again and again that only led to hurt and heartbreak. 

So maybe he could have done more to sustain his relationships. Maybe the people he’d pushed away would have been amazing, if he hadn’t been so scared. Maybe he could have found love, like the stories always said, if only he’d let someone close enough. But he knew better. Knew better than to open himself up like that, to _fall_ like that, because falling never led to flying, it just led to hitting the ground.

And now…now, when he hadn’t been expecting it, when he hadn’t even guarded himself against it because they were _married_ , for fuck’s sake, nothing was going to happen!

Now he’s fallen hard, and he doesn’t know how to stop himself.

\---

The movies, the stories, they all lied. Love isn’t beautiful sparkles and roses and forever.

Love is a terrifying mess and he wants his feelings to just. Full stop. Right now.

Yeah right. It never works like that.

\---

Well, if he can’t stop his feelings, he’ll just have to stop everything else.

He just can’t keep doing this anymore.

\---

“So here’s the thing,” Travis blurts, bursting into the front hall before Wes has even opened the door all the way. “I can’t—where’s Alex?”

“Hi, Travis, good to see you too,” Wes snarks grumpily, shutting the door behind Travis. “Please, come inside. Alex is in the living room.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever, come on.” Ignoring his partner’s annoyance—this is too important for niceties—Travis grabs Wes’s arm and hauls him into the living room. Alex looks up from her book, mouth opening with a greeting, but Travis cuts her off before she can say anything.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

The silence is sudden, intense, and Travis can hear his heart pounding in his hears, a steady, panicked cadence. He had people point guns at him, he’s been _shot_ at, but he doesn’t know that he’s ever been this terrified in his life.

At his side, Wes shifts. “This…?” he asks slowly, voice flat, carefully modulated. The kind of voice people use when they’re preparing for the worst.

Abruptly realizing he still has a hold of Wes’s arm, Travis drops it and takes a few steps away, putting him almost equidistant between Wes and Alex. He looks between them, takes in the wary confusion on both of their faces, and his heart breaks—he wants to reach out and gather them both up, wants to climb on his bike and run as far and as fast as he can, wants to—

He closes his eyes, takes a breath, and braces himself. “ _This_.” He waves his hand between the three of them, big ragged motions because he is not okay with this this, he is _not_ , but it is _necessary_. “I can’t do this anymore.”

They don’t say anything, and the silence makes him cringe. He hurries to fill it. “It’s not that I have a problem with _this_ , that’s not it at all. It’s just that I sort of…I think I…no, okay, I _know_ I’ve developed f-feelings.” God fucking dammit, he can’t even get the word out without stuttering over the thought. Real fucking smooth, Marks. “And it—it’s not fair, to either of you, so we really need to stop.”

He dares to open his eyes, and finds them both just gaping at him. He rushes on, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible so he can go home and maybe cry a little.

“I really want to help, you guys are my favorites—” (fuck, shit, he meant to say _friends_ , this is going so _badly_ ) “—but I can’t be your fucktoy anymore. And—and honestly, you two are doing _great_ , way better than some of the relationships I’ve seen in my life, so, you know, that’s awesome. You’ll be fine, even without… _this_.”

He shifts, resisting the urge to wring his hands together, and looks at Wes. The blonde looks like a fish, mouth opening and closing without a sound coming out. In another situation it’d be comical. “Look, I’ll talk to the captain on Monday, we’ll figure something out at work. It’ll be fine.”

That’s the worst part, knowing _everything_ is going to end. It doesn’t have to, probably—this isn’t ending as badly as some of his other relationships, so if they wanted to, if they _tried_ …

But Travis can’t do that. Can’t bear the thought of being so close to Wes but not able to touch, of being forced to spend every day next to the guy he loves without being able to _do_ anything about it.

As much as it pains him to think of being partnered with someone else, he _can’t_ stay. He can’t do that to himself. There’s no point in hurting just for the sake of hurting.

Travis would have thought his offer to fix things with the captain would relieve Wes, since he won’t have to deal with anything, but his partner just looks stricken instead. Wes opens his mouth and says, in a choked, hushed voice, “ _Travis_ —” and fuck, Travis realizes that things can, in fact, get worse. He forgot to take into account, during his preparations for this speech, that they can talk _back_.

“Anyway!” he practically shouts, steamrolling right over Wes. “That’s all I wanted to say. So have a good night and—and—and a good life. And.” He swallows, blinking back tears. “Bye.”

And then Travis does something he’s always been good at.

He runs.

\---

Travis bought his first motorcycle when he was nineteen years old. It was old and used, and in pretty poor condition, but he’d scrimped and saved for over a year to buy it, and the minute money changed hands and Travis laid his hands on _his_ bike, the world opened up with possibilities.

He spent afternoons and weekends at the junkyards and auto shops, finding parts, working on the bike, buffing and polishing and fiddling with the engine until it was purring like a jaguar. Every moment, he imagined what he would do once it was up and running, where he would go. He could travel the country, visit places he’d only ever seen on TV, he could ride right out of LA and never look back—!

For about half a second, right before he turned the keys, he was tempted. He wanted to drive and drive and forget about Los Angeles, forget about his entire childhood. Strike out on his own and make a new life for himself.

Instead, he stayed. Took his bike out, racing along the roads to feel the wind on his face, but he never went farther than a few cities away. Never took off without looking back.

That was, he realized much, much later, one of the only times he _didn’t_ run away.

\---

He thinks about it now, zipping through the darkened streets of the city. Thinks about heading home, packing a bag, and driving as fast as he can past the city limits. He can start fresh somewhere else, drive until he runs out of gas and forgets all about this stupid heartache, forgets about Alex and Wes and that pretty little house that feels more like home than his trailer ever managed.

Until he forgets about all the things he can’t have.

It’s a nice fantasy, but that’s all it is—a fantasy. Travis knows he’ll never be able to force himself to leave. He has too much here, too many memories, too many family members. He can’t just up and leave without a word.

He sniffles inside his helmet and wishes things were simple.

By the time he pulls up in front of his warehouse, he’s decided he’s probably not going to cry tonight. So, you know, that’s something. Still, as he’s pushing his bike inside, he’s dashing tears from his cheeks—and then he realizes there’s someone sitting on the steps of his trailer.

Travis pauses. Alex looks up, says, “Travis!” and rises to her feet.

Travis turns and heads right back for the street.

Wes appears out of nowhere and grabs him, turns him back toward his trailer. “We need to talk,” Wes says, because sure, let’s twist the knife in deeper, why the hell not.

“I hate you,” Travis snarls, but he doesn’t fight as Wes strong-arms him across the warehouse floor. Because as much as he’s hurting right now, he’s not quite reached the point where he punches Wes in the mouth.

That point is totally coming up, he can feel it. But he’s not quite there yet.

“Sure you do,” Wes replies, and he’s absolutely rolling his eyes, the fucker. Which, okay, Travis _did_ just confess to having _feelings_ like an hour ago, so Wes has a valid excuse for his skepticism, but love and hate are just two sides of the same coin and Travis is really not feeling very generous right this second.

The whole point of ending things was for them to go away and he’d never seen them again.

Why are they _here?_

They make it to Travis’s tiny set of patio furniture, and Wes forcefully pushes him into a chair. Travis crosses his arms and scowls at the table, refusing to look at either of them. Bad enough they’re _here_. God, _why are they here?_

He’s only got two chairs—Alex takes the other one, while Wes hovers beside the table, probably to make sure Travis can’t run away, the bastard. He entertains the notion of making a break for it anyway, just jumping up and bolting—

“We’re sorry, Travis,” Alex says.

Travis’s head snaps up. She reaches out, hesitates, and drops her hand to the table, fingers curling towards her palm. “We’re sorry,” she repeats.

Travis gapes. “For _what?”_ She’s got nothing to be sorry about. _Travis_ is the one who couldn’t keep his _feelings_ to himself. _They_ didn’t do anything wrong.

Alex gives him a small smile, something halfway between sad and nervous. “For misleading you. For not telling you the truth.”

“What truth? I was sleeping with you to help your marriage.” That’s all this ever was. _Travis_ was the one who let it go too far.

“Yes. That’s…” Alex bites her lip, eyes flicking over Travis’s shoulder.

“It started that way,” Wes says, and Travis twists to look up at him. Wes has his arms crossed and he’s looking at his shoes with his _I’m really uncomfortable right now_ face on. Usually when Travis sees that face, Wes changes the subject or shuts the conversation down within five minutes

Somehow, Travis bets that’s not going to happen this time. 

Since answers from Wes are never forthcoming, at the best of times, and this is anything but, Travis turns back to Alex.

“Started that way…” he repeats slowly, brow furrowing slightly.

This time when she reaches out, her hand makes it all the way to his arm, clasping him right below the elbow. “It started that way,” she echoes. “You were never a fucktoy, Travis. You brought us something we’d been missing in our marriage. And…you’re not the only one who developed feelings.”

Travis stares at her.

He turns and stares at Wes.

Then he shakes her hand off and pushes away from the table. “Bullshit.”

Wes’s hands comes down on his shoulders, holding him in place. “Really not,” his partner says, and Travis sees red. He can totally take Wes, just turn and punch him and _go_ , because how _dare_ he, how dare _they_ , this is _not funny_ —

No. This is not funny _at all_ , and Wes and Alex aren’t the type of people who would do something like this as a joke.

Something painfully like _hope_ flutters in his chest.

Travis licks his lips, shifts beneath Wes’s hands. “Really?” he asks, and he hates the way his voice breaks on the word. If he’s wrong, if they’re lying…

Alex reaches out once more, taking one of his hands and wrapping it in her own. “Really, Travis.”

He stares at her some more, swallowing harshly. “You never…said anything.”

“We thought we were,” Alex says.

Travis makes a small, disbelieving sound. “ _Bullshit_ ,” he says again, voice wobbling on the word, and he hates himself for it, for showing that much emotion when he can’t figure out what the hell is actually happening here. He wants to believe them, wants to trust that this isn’t just a cruel joke, them getting his hopes up, but he’s been through his sort of thing before and he’s tired of it, tired of having his hopes dashed and thrown back into his face.

He needs to be able to smile this all away if everything goes as badly as he’s afraid it will. Right now there’s no way he can manage that.

Behind him, Wes exhales noisily, his _Exasperated because Travis isn’t seeing the obvious_ sound. “Come on, Travis if we’d told you, you would have run for the hills as fast as you could. We had to…to…” His hands tighten on Travis’s shoulders, then relax, like he’s groping for the right word.

“To ease you into it,” Alex supplies. “To _show_ you, rather than tell you. To get you used to the idea before we just dumped it on you.”

God, why did he have to fall for a couple of _lawyers?_ Can’t they just give him a straight answer for once?

“Get used to _what?”_

“To being in a relationship,” they say in unison.

It all clicks into place.

The touching, little non-sexual signs of affection. Staying the night after their trysts. The baseball game. Jazz club. Movie nights and lingerie and little packed lunches in blue Tupperware.

He can’t believe he didn’t see it before.

“Oh my god! You were dating me!” He points accusingly at Alex, and the only reason he doesn’t leap to his feet is because Wes is still holding him down. “You two were sneak-dating me!”

“Yes,” Wes says over his shoulder, and Alex grasps his hand again, saying, “We were trying to show you how we felt, Travis,” and oh my god, oh _god_ they are fucking _serious_ , he has been _dating them_ for months now, not just sex but _actually dating_ , because he has feelings and they do too and—

Oh god, oh holy fucking _hell_.

“Travis?” Wes moves from behind him, crouches beside the chair. One hand curls around the back of Travis’s neck, the other cupping his cheek, and Wes is there saying “Breathe, Travis, you’re okay, you’re safe, you need to breathe,” and Alex is still holding his hand and Travis clings to her like a lifeline, probably hurting her he’s squeezing so tightly.

“I can’t,” he gasps, vision swimming because all those tears he’d so valiantly held back have decided to make a break for it. “I can’t, I _can’t_ —”

He wants it, god, he needs it so bad he aches for it. But this is _real_ and it is _serious_ and he can’t, he doesn’t dare risk it. He’s been betrayed too many times in the past, deceived by words like _family_ and _home_ and he knows better, knows it never lasts, so he _can’t_. He doesn’t dare risk his heart like that.

Better to have loved and lost? No, no, better to have never loved at all than to put everything on the line and have it all snatched away.

He stares at them, at his two favorite people, and he sobs, “I can’t, I’m sorry but I _can’t_ —” and it breaks his heart because he wants it more than air, but he can’t and he won’t and if this is what ends everything for good, then fuck, they shouldn’t have come at _all_ —

But Wes’s thumb is sweeping the side of his neck, and he’s saying, “It’s okay, Travis, it’s okay,” and Alex is suddenly at his side as well, touching and comforting and murmuring, “You don’t have to, we’re not making you do anything you don’t want to,” and Travis just—

Travis curls in on himself and falls apart.

\---

The first time Travis’s heart broke, he was three years old, and his foster mom had just sat him down and told him he was being moved. The same foster mom who made him macaroni for dinner and tucked him in at night and kissed his forehead and said she loved him. And now she was telling him he was being taken away and she wasn’t even fighting it, so she obviously didn’t love him _that_ much.

His heart has been breaking ever since.

\---

He’s not sure how he ended up on the ground, but here he is, wedge between Wes and Alex with his ass going numb on the concrete. He’d almost think he’d feel claustrophobic, with Wes’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and Alex’s hand running through his hair and both of them draped against his sides, but he doesn’t.

If anything, he feels reassured, comforted. _Loved_.

That gets his heart pitter-pattering in panic again. He takes deep breaths to keep from completely freaking out. It mostly works.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, shifting, and Wes squeezes his shoulder and Alex leans over and presses a kiss to his temple and whispers, _“Don’t be.”_

Alex presses another kiss to his cheek, his temple, his hair. “We’re not asking for anything you don’t want to give,” she says softly.

“We’re simply leaving the door open. If you want to join us, we’ll be waiting,” Wes tells him, his voice gentler than Travis has ever heard it.

Wes, already pressed so close, leans in even closer and drops his own kiss to Travis’s jaw. “We’re not going anywhere, Trav,” he says, and his voice rings with the weight of an oath.

Travis almost believes him.

\---

The first time Travis falls in love, really, truly, die-for-you love, he’s thirty-seven years old. He sits on the cold concrete floor of a nearly-empty warehouse, surrounded by the two people he loves more than anyone else, and he wants what they promise. He wants to believe that they’ll be different than everyone else.

The thought of a relationship terrifies him, but the thought of leaving without taking a chance…somehow, that scares him even more.

For them, he wants to try.

(He doesn’t know it yet, but this is the moment his heart stops breaking.)

\---

“We can go as slow as you want,” Wes assures him, helping him to his feet. He pulls Travis’s keys right out of his pocket and tosses them to Alex.

Deftly, she catches them midair. “Or we can go as fast as you want,” she adds, unlocking Travis’s trailer. “We’re not pushing for anything. You call the shots.”

Travis mulls this over as Wes nudges him towards the open doorway. “We can still have sex, though, right?” he wonders, “Because I really liked the sex.”

“And anything else as well,” Alex assures him, leading the way through his trailer.

Travis ponders this some more, scrubbing at his cheeks “Okay. But definitely the sex, right?”

Behind him, Wes huffs a small, dry laugh. “Yes, Travis, we can still have the sex.”

“Oh. Good.” He’s feeling kind of muzzy-headed and tired after his little freakout, so it takes him a second to realize where they’re headed; his bedroom at the back of the trailer. “Woah, hey,” he tries to backpedal, “I didn’t mean _now_.” Because yes he loves the sex—a _lot_ , he’s not going to deny that—but he’s had more than enough emotional upheaval in his life tonight and he’s ready to crash for ten hours straight.

But Wes is there with a warm hand on his neck, murmuring, “Shhh,” like Travis is some kind of skittish dog, and Alex takes both his hands in hers and says, “It’s okay, I promise,” and, well, he supposes trust has to start _somewhere_ ,right?

Their hands are gentle as they undress him, light fingers tracing slow caresses and lips peppering feathery kisses against each new patch of skin uncovered. Travis stands there and watches, baffled by this…it’s almost a _ritual_ , he thinks, something unlike any type of foreplay he’s ever experienced, because it’s not about sex at all, it’s about adoration and affection and affirmation, all wrapped up in one.

He ends up standing there in nothing but his boxers, warm to his toes from the weight of their touches.

He’s not the only one who loses clothes. In short order they strip, until Wes is in his boxers and undershirt and Alex is down to nothing but her panties. Travis feels a little jolt in his chest at the sight of them, something that has little to do with lust, but a lot more to do with all those _feelings_ Travis isn’t quite prepared to talk about yet.

He bites his tongue and lets himself be guided to bed, tucked under the covers with both of them curled up beside him, a respectful few inches between them.

They’re giving him space, he understands, and time to work out what he needs, but that’s too much distance right now and he needs them _close_. So he reaches out and hauls them in, and Alex squeaks and Wes grumbles but they both settle in their new spots, pressed warm against his sides.

He stares at the ceiling and thinks he could get used to this.

\---

He wants it. Relationships and fights and making up and everything else that comes with it. He aches for it, in the loneliest parts of his heart, and he wants to see if they can fill the gaping wounds inside of him that have never quite stopped bleeding. He loves them, more than he can say, and oh, he wants it.

And, if they’re really willing to let him take his time, he thinks he might just get there.

\---

He wakes up slow, warm and content. Wes is practicing his octopus routine, clinging so tightly they might as well be glued together, and Alex has an arm around his waist and her legs tangled with his. This isn’t so bad, he decides, staring at the ceiling. He thinks he could definitely get used to this.

A smile creeps across his lips, slow and horribly, indulgently fond.

This, he thinks, is perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> They were supposed to be in a happy and healthy Actual Relationship at the end of this fic. As these things often do, the story took a turn right at the end there and Travis said, “Nope.” But they will get there. They were definitely get there.
> 
> Just…not in this fic.


End file.
